Treating cultural references in translation: The Wedding of Zein as an example
Treating cultural references in translation: The Wedding of Zein as an example
Several shifts related to cultural references take place during the translation process. The current article deals with the attempts the translator Denys Johnson-Davies takes in order to address the rich cultural references in The Wedding of Zein by the Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih. These attempts are the target of the current study. This paper focuses on how theories of translation attempt to explain the rationale behind the translator’s decisions and actions, specifically when dealing with culture-specific references. This article demonstrates that the target reader (TR) is the centre of Johnson-Davies’ translation of the source text (ST). The paper shows that translators do not follow one single approach when rendering a text but rather a plethora of techniques to help the reader digest the literature in their hands.
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